Blog Posts - Cora the Performer

Another title-less mishmash with no rhythm or structure.

11/11/2015

but at least I am writing... baby steps.
I sit here, lay here, stand here, curl here.... wishing I could call you; knowing you don't even know who the you is of which I speak. You probably think this is some lover of the past, who I long for, pine for, miss with all of my body and soul... or maybe you think this is an amalgamation of lovers past and present... perhaps you are sure this is about you.... or even still, there is a chance you don't even read this bullshit.
The end is always me crying, but not in the way that you would imagine... or maybe it's exactly how you would imagine the downfall of this cancer plays out.
I cry.
I cry the ugly cry.
I know- hard to believe, eh?
And it's not like we never talk again... It's more just a subtle shutting down, closing in, quieting... And my inner fire dies and my eyes ice over and my chest feels that sinking slow numbing... and I am done.
It happened with her when John died, and her when I couldn't get a job at a temp agency after a phd and 4 years on the academic job market, and it happened with her after that conversation about my tiny home dream and the canceling of my class, and with her when we had drank too much during the day and felt the need to spew all that we had been holding onto for a year and a half or three.
And one or all or none of them is you.
So, I feel myself numb in that sinking, tingling way, wanting to text you.
And I miss you. I miss what I thought you could be. I miss what you were. I miss what I know you can be. I miss who you are. I miss what I imagined we would grow into and I miss wanting to try.
I miss hope.
Even though it was rarely there.
So I sit here, lay here, stand here, curl here.... alone. wishing more than anything, that last word weren't the ending.
But know it is and will always be... so I sit here, lay here, stand here, curl here... and shut. it. down. for good here.
alone

This needs some work, structure, rhythm etc, but it's a start after 6 months of no writing

10/17/2015

I said "I'm open to anything. You can ask me anything." And then I stayed open and answered anything, aware that so many of them would filter because of my title... my position. And I felt totally fine; totally safe. And then I walked out the doors, wide fucking open.

Vulnerable: it's the word of the week.

Remember when you told me you were a bad girlfriend. I couldn't really understand what that meant at the time. Was it a warning? a concession? an out? Yes. All of those things.

So, I walked out the doors, wide fucking open; bright eyes; vulnerable. I sat there, stood there, paced there waiting for you. I should have known then, but my heart protects my brain and vice versa.

Vulnerability presented itself in the form of grief so I settled in, comfortable in this comfort-food moment like an old pair of Fluevogs or a worn-in corset.

Remember when you leaned over to kiss me? or when I leaned over to kiss you? And we both made the decision to go there. Again.

The evening continued in the way our connection has. We spoke of former lovers as current lovers danced in our minds, radiating from our fingers. We spoke of race and class and love and sex... you uncomfortable in your comfort; me comfortable in the distance.

Remember when I felt your fingers on my skin, underneath me and I thought: how much more vulnerable could I have gotten? I let you hold my hand and I curled in as much as you would allow. I failed as usual.

Skin flowed over skin; heart over heart. We melted into each other; both elsewhere... both thinking of her or her or her or her. Perhaps you aren't seeing from the right angle...

Vulnerability was the word of the week...

If I were a poet

4/9/2015

If I were a poet, I would write with rhyme and rhythm; punching words out with staccato consonants and full vowels.

If I were a poet, There would be a perpetual warning sign hovering over my sex life "fuck at your own risk. You could be the subject of my next piece!"

If I were a poet, I would wake up in the morning and write as I sip my coffee while crashing at my older ex-lover's place.

If I were a poet, I would walk away from lovers without a thought, brooding and silent, passive-aggression and weed my only coping mechanisms.

If I were a poet, I would slice through the thick air of shame and anger and regret with lyrics to the next great Chris Pureka song, rather than slicing my forearm and legs with the razors hidden next to my vibrator in my bedside table.

if I were a poet, I would answer in one word, bottling up my emotions of multi-syllabic, complex sentences so I could release them in verse and rhythm and rhyme.

If I were a poet, I could rhyme. I would understand rhythm outside of the in and out, in and out of fucking...

If I were a poet, I wouldn't cry. I would pop pills and shut down, swallowing Jameson and emotions like air and water.

But I am not a poet.

Instead I sit here staring at a computer, unable to compose words into pieces; unable to use my moleskin for anything other than cryptic notes about work that I never understand after the fact.

Instead I love too hard, and always end up the one with a broken heart... loving too much, stupidly trusting any butch who pretends to give a fuck.

Instead I ride my bike or run each morning, attempting to ground myself, unable to write unless I have some sort of drink in me...

Instead I build playing card castles over drinks of tequila or Jameson neat, out-butching every butch who dares to date me.

Instead I end poems and pieces and relationships and situations abruptly, via text, and by any means necessary as my sister calls it, because there is no other way to do it.... unless and if I were a poet.

if

2/15/2015

I have often wondered what would have happened if I had set a boundary with you that very first time we fought. Remember how you hung up the phone as soon as the conflict started? I have shamed myself over this moment for years now.

But, where would I be now had that moment changed? Would I still be in Brooklyn, working 95 hours a week and miserable?

I have often wondered what would have happened if you had said "it's not true," "I love you," or "don't go" when I stood to walk away that August morning on Carps hill. What would have happened had you known your needs or been able to communicate with me as you recently posted and then took down?

But where would I be now had that moment not resulted in me crying and clutching my stomach with the physical pain that realization manifested on a sunny August Sunday before days of rain?

I have often wondered what would have happened had I fallen in love with you during those care free chicago summer days and nights? What would it have been like had you been a top or been truly interested in me instead of a sweet summer fling?

But where would I be now had I not left chicago to continue that crazy summer of semi-attached numb love? Who would I have texted desperately from my tent while crying the ugly cry quietly and alone?

I have often wondered what would have happened had I said no on that December evening of emailing when you asked if perhaps too much had happened so perhaps I wouldn't want to meet up about did I want kids and all the other bullshit you placed as a facade on our failed not-quite-romance. What if I had said no and continued on with my sweet potentials?

But where would I be now had I fallen for her sweet smile despite her fear of missing out and desire not to really go there with someone so young? Someone so stupid?

Because that is where I am now. Still sort of young, but not quite young enough to be this pathetically single; still sort of stupid, but not stupid enough that someone could love me, despite all the "your intelligence is such a turn on" comments followed by patriarchy veiled in flirting in the form of "damn I bet you look hot while teaching...."

Here I am now, dealing with the aftermath of your sabotage of my dating life; paranoid and afraid, unable to even recognize trauma at its finest.

Here I am now, still dating butch after butch who uses sweet words to pretend she is really into me, but ends up choosing someone else within weeks or months. Here I am, the catalyst for change for all of my lovers. My success rate is so high, I should start a matchmaking service. Date me. Find your true love 6 months later.

Here I am in this love-hate relationship with life. 11 months dry. Still so close to you, so close you could just appear with flowers and actual love as in my pathetic dreams; still unable to stand another's hand upon me; still wishing I did not feel like you mean more to me than anyone else I have ever loved; Infinitely grateful for these what if moments. Alone. Alive. Awkward. And... Still here.

Don't Go

1/25/2015

My eyes blink. Everything is blurry, so I start rubbing my eyes. I hear voices in the distance, but I ignore them in favor of concentrating on vision. "Don't rub your eyes," I hear as I feel a sharp pain in my right hand and another in my left shoulder. Tears leak from my eyes, and I try to explain that I am trying to see. I need to see.

And so I do, even if it is a year later.

A year ago, we were in LA, witnessing love and pretending to be walking that road... Or at least I was pretending. You were just lashing out, pissed off from stupid annoyances; reacting like a child who hasn't gotten her way.

But today, a year later but decades smarter (or so I want to believe), I watched the video of that day. I saw myself huddled in on myself. Cowering. Afraid. Tiny. Nothing.

And I saw.

I saw all that everyone- except for her- was afraid to say.

So, I sit here; rubbing my eyes; trying not to feel shame because I spent so much time collapsed in on myself, trying to disappear while wishing you could see me for even a second.

And my eyes leak, crying for the first time in months, wishing I could meet with the dragons, wanting to sleep with strangers who would inevitably fall in love with me, or so they would believe. But they wouldn't.

As you didn't.

And so I learned to see; the feeling of loneliness; my needs; how triggers manifest; what it might feel like to attach; and why I shouldn't.

"Maybe we can connect when neither of us are hung up on someone else" she said.

And I wanted to reply "don't go."

But I wasn't sure if I was talking to you, to her, or to myself.

You have already gone; and so has she... so that just leaves me.

And I see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7MryhD61sc

today, anger is not the loudest voice

11/2/2014

http://youtu.be/c9QNRvXH1HI

Radio Silence

10/25/2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoR4KQ0wUk4

One year ago today, I was in LA; in bed with a stranger; trying everything I could to get over you. We weren't even over officially, but I guess we had never really begun either, so I got a start on things by sleeping with strangers while you slept with friends.

You knew so little about me and my life-- and vice versa-- even after so long. But, like the stench of a packed bus, your scent lingered as I struggled to put down the coconut oil and return to the comfort of lavender or gardenia. You clung to me like you did to Home. You said you hated the end and wanted to get out of there, yet you lingered and crept... staring at me from across the belly bowl, or on the path outside Sprouts. And maybe the fact that you knew nothing of me was the way you could stay so attached. You certainly would have run had you known anything real. I was, after all, the only lover you've had who was together. And that was why you finally let go.... And that was why I finally moved on. I could not be as fucked up as you needed me to be in order for you to love me.

So, it was surprising, jarring, scary in fact, to start this love affair with her, realizing that we both knew more about each other than I had known about my lover of more than a year and a half. Even that word, lover, seemed more apropos with her than it ever did with you, even though she and I had never even kissed; felt the softness of each other's hearts; caressing our souls as we lay naked and spent. She knew these intimate details that I had only shared with the entire world, and still she liked me. She saw me splayed open on the floor without ever having met me. And she held me in ways that made me think: This could actually be what love feels like before it turns into love.

And then she was gone. Radio silence.

And I am left to the same thoughts that I had with you.... was that even real or did I just imagine it as some fucked up recurring nightmarish dream? The kind you can't tell if you are in a nightmare or a dream; The kind you don't want to wake up from, because you just need to figure it out; the kind you are committed to seeing through to the end.

And it did. It ended with you, so much later than it should have, with so much more heart break than was necessary... and it ended with her, so much earlier than it should have, with so much more heart break than was necessary...

And I want more than anything to hear the knock of my door, and see you standing there.... but I know that would not be anymore real than the way too long I wasted on you... and I want more than anything to see her walking up the stairs, having come to visit with a bouquet of flowers and a sweet grin... Instead I am here alone with this Radio silence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyKuP_3p6QU

The passing of time

10/11/2014

Six months ago, this day felt so far away it felt like another lifetime, another world, another existence. And in many ways it is.

Six months ago I was still under the delusion that you weren't an asshole. I was still convinced it was just an excuse for poor behavior (which is basically the same thing). But today I know you just wanted me to believe that so that I would pour myself all over you trying to convince you to love me, believing that one day you would somehow show up and just love me and we would finally be something real. But I didn't. You didn't. And we weren't. Despite any bullshit of which you have tried to convince me and yourself.

She asked what it would be like to forgive you and I had no answer but tears. I have had you listed in my phone as "forgive her" for months. Yet I do not, but then again, you have never actually apologized, and even though I doubt I would believe you, it would be nice to hear... I do all of the other things-- speak kindly of you, unblock you, send you all the loving kindness I can muster. And I think this must be what she feels like three years later.... Holding tight to the resentment, repeating "I have no resentment" over and over and over. But we both know that's a lie.

I didn't think this is how I would feel three years later, she/I must be thinking.

I wanted to apologize to you because I wasn't able to love you like you needed me to and like you loved me. I know now how that feels. I wanted to thank you for all the sweet gestures-- the flowers, the dapper dress-up nights, the trips to ice cream, the home cooked meals, the roses on the bed and the weekend trips even though we were both so poor. I'm sorry I couldn't see that as your love language. I'm sorry I couldn't communicate that or other important sentiments. I'm sorry it took being with someone who treated me like shit and made me question my own self worth for almost 2 years to make me realize how hard it must have been to be with me over that year.

So much time has passed between that broken heart and this one. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever feel whole again, if I will ever be able to trust again, feel lovable again.

And then I realize how strange it is that I feel like this right now- only 6 months later.. Only 6.5 years later... Only 11 years later.... And I grasp onto the tortoise shell of time trying to remember that even right now I am, I can, and I do.

Dear you

8/27/2014

I have written what feels like hundreds of pieces to you in the last 2 weeks, but it was probably only a few. I have scratched angry vicious words into paper, intending to hurt you as I know I can, despite your stone cold front. I have leaked pathetic hurt through streams of tears. I have sighed out grounded and peaceful amends. But none of these words and actions really capture where I am.

I don’t hate you, as my vicious words indicate. I would need to care to hate you, and care I do not. I don’t feel the hurt that those tears seem to transmit. I would have to be surprised somehow to be hurt by your callous and emotionally damaged actions. And I am not. I am not ready to make amends to you or hear your amends. Maybe one day, but not today.

In the end I am not sad about you or losing you. I never really had you, so it’s no big loss. On a lonely foggy San Francisco Sunday, I won’t miss you complaining about the food or the accommodations. I won’t think about those lonely days when I felt so dismissed and unloved because you couldn’t be fucked to remember anyone other than yourself. I won’t long for the feeling that I have to be a completely fucked up mess to get any of your attention, as all of your exes and friends do. I won’t reminisce nostalgically about the manipulative word play you use to try to convince yourself and others that you somehow aren’t a complete liar.

Instead, I will move on. I will continue to transform and grow, remembering that none of what has occurred in the last 2 years had anything to do with you. I will remember with gratitude the sweet love I gave myself when you couldn’t. I will continue to try to bring that to others; to the world. And I will remember, above anything else, that I deserve so much more than you…

Because I do.

Rise

7/16/2014

One year ago was the first time you asked me to go out spontaneously. I said yes, but I don't think you remember that and you never asked me again because that is how you limited your view of me.

synecdoche.

We drank too much. I saw your name for me in your phone. We went on the have a painful romantic weekend; yet I still had some of the best fun of my life.

a part is made to represent the whole

You couldn't even look at me. You answered all questions with that tone.... The one that quietly stabbed apathy and disinterest.

Broken

Normally there is a tv, music, some bar drama or the ocean, but tonight there was nothing. Just me and my body art, a room full of Mainline assholes and a chatter box to keep it so we could hardly notice. He couldn't even look at me. And it felt like that weekend a year ago. I thought: I deserve so much more than this-- hugs, cuddles, care, kindness-- yet I know I need to survive and the only way I will survive is by self care

having been fractured or damaged and no longer in one piece or in working order.

"a broken arm"

synonyms:smashed, shattered,fragmented, splintered,crushed, snapped

So I kept on keeping on. You dropped me off and forgot all about our spontaneous outing on the Fourth of July. You shut down and I felt so ignored, thrown away and defeated.

Self preservation

I reach out. Speaking my truths to her. She asks questions, gives compliments freely, smiles and props me up. She knows she isn't the one, if we are to presume the one even exists. I didn't think it did until you. And I feel ashamed to admit that I still think you are that one... Just like I feel ashamed to admit I think one day he might not hate me.

the protection of oneself from harm or death, especially regarded as a basic instinct in human beings and animals

So I sit here, resisting the urge to slice, to contact you, to blame myself. Instead I use these fucking stupid skills.... To grow bigger and bolder and more that that synecdoche, than that broken 4, 15, or 36 year old, than that womyn barely hanging on....

I move on and rise.